Air NZ is not the first company to face a backlash over mocking Ostapchuk's gender and fall from grace.

Sandwich chain Habitual Fix took a hammering in August after creating a poster with a picture of Ostapchuk to sell its "manwich", featuring the catchlines "no added hormones or steroids" and "no hidden a-genders".

The latest Air NZ blunder comes just a month after the airline made headlines by giving spooky names to its domestic destinations for Halloween, with the South Island's Blenheim becoming Beastheim'.

The town - where serial sex offender Stewart Murray Wilson committed crimes over 26 years that saw him dubbed "the Beast of Blenheim" - was not amused.